


heavy water

by falterth



Category: Naruto
Genre: Depression, Multi, Sasuke-centric, Self-Loathing, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 23:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth/pseuds/falterth
Summary: Sasuke feels ugly. It is deep within his bones and it is too much to even think about changing.





	heavy water

**Author's Note:**

> taken from my own experiences with depression

_1_

 

Sasuke feels ugly. It is deep within his bones and it is too much to even think about changing.

 

He feels ugly when he remembers every person he has had to kill. Ugly whenever he turns in a mission report that details the way he murdered someone, because that is what it is. Murder.

 

He is ugly when he puts on the ANBU mask, and he is ugly when he takes it off and pretends that his work is not affecting him in such a large manner.

 

There are many things Sasuke calls himself; ugly is just the most common among the army of words that crowd up and press against his mind. Liar. Cruel. Ugly. Fragile. Callous. Ugly. Heartless. Child-killer.

 

Sasuke has trouble falling asleep. He lies in his bed and thinks, and most of the time he forgets what he thinks about—it is almost a trance, that state in which he spends so much of his time. When he thinks, he thinks hard. Every night the blankets are so warm and so are his pajamas, and it feels so easy for him to think about closing his eyes and drifting off into a dreamscape that holds only the light for him—but he thinks, and he remembers.

 

He has thought about dying before. The thought of suicide is no stranger, but neither is it welcome in his mind. He would like to die, he supposes, in the arms of his loved ones.

 

Then he tries to cry—tries to let anything out, chases a catharsis that will never come to him—and although his eyes water, he has never succeeded and it frustrates him to hell and back. Sasuke _wants_ to cry. He wants to be able to let out his emotions for once and to tell Naruto and Sakura how he feels, but he already knows that it is a lost cause.

 

Naruto and Sakura.

 

When Sasuke thinks about them, his chest tightens. His heart grows lighter and sometimes he feels that the blindfold restricting his vision and his goals loosens just the tiniest bit—sometimes it comes off entirely and he can see, then, and it is beautiful to be free of the burdens that he has known for the better part of his life.

 

He wants to become the wind. He wants to steal away from Konoha with Naruto and Sakura and hold them in his arms and kiss them and be okay with them. He wants to fly with them, in the sky where people will look up to them—perhaps point and stare—and say, "they are beautiful."

 

Because Sasuke is ugly.

 

(This is the one thing he has never told anyone. Not even those two. He feels that it is his most traitorous thought, but is the one he knows will never waver. He wants to feel the clouds beneath his fingertips, wants to visit new places and eat new foods and stay away from Konoha for _good._ But he cannot tell.)

 

There are times in which Sasuke thinks he is close. He is so close that he can reach out and almost feel the freedom he has longed for. These times come in the dead of thought and steal his breath away. They steal the floor from under his feet and they steal the ceiling from over his head and they force him to see everything he has ever hoped for—everything he will never have.

 

Then they fly away, those fleeting thoughts. He hears a whistling, sometimes, and he knows that it is the whistling of birds. The birds call to him and he wants to take the hands of his lovers and go to the birds—to fly away with the birds.

 

Maybe he will go where Itachi has gone. Maybe he will be able to fill up the black hole in his heart where his brother used to reside, and maybe Itachi and Naruto and Sakura could all be good friends.

 

Sasuke would love that.

 

So he thinks, even as he must kill, and he flies even while he is under sheets and earth and—

 

—and he hears choruses of angels in his head _they sing to him praises and lullabies and promises of rightness and everything will be okay and aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh—_

 

Sasuke listens to these sweet songs and wears his finest silk smile to the ball, and leaves light touches all over _his_ lights.

 

(He never talks.)

 

_2_

 

Sakura's eyes sparkle like the stars. Naruto's laugh sounds like heavenly, metallic rain.

 

How he loves them so. Someday, he thinks, they will be able to go with me. And I will be able to tell them.

 

His feet feel light now—he is thinking, and he is also in bed, and he is also racing around the world with whispering footfalls and bright eyes. Naruto and Sakura in tow.

 

They are so beautiful.

 

Sasuke thinks that he might fill up and spill over if he could love them any more than he already does. Spill over into sweet melodies and crystal-drop tears and nectar and ambrosia.

 

But he cannot talk because they are beautiful, and because he is but a believer lying at their feet. He believes, though, that one day they will make him beautiful. Or maybe he will be able to open his eyes and make himself beautiful.


End file.
